Before Employment and Support Allowance there was Incapacity Benefit.
IB was blamed by politicians for abandoning people on benefits and encouraging malingering. ESA was supposed to get tough on the workshy and give people more support and encouragement to return to work.
Yet on IB, around 25% of people started work within a year of claiming benefits. On ESA and the Work Programme that figure is approximately 5%.
"Eileen" explains how different things were under Incapacity Benefit.:
"The much-maligned Incapacity Benefit kept me alive
while giving me the space to explore the possibility of returning to
work. I was able to participate in back-to-work programmes on a voluntary
basis, which eventually led to a paid job. Later on, I was able to keep
my hand in by doing permitted work, without having to worry about losing
my benefit or being threatened with sanctions. Best of all, I was being
treated as a responsible adult, not as a child or a malingerer, and felt I had
some control over my life."
I suspect that when the ESA/WCA corpse count figures are finally pried from IDS's clammy fingers, they will prove that WRAG and the Work Progmamme kicked more ESA claimants into early graves than were foumd sustainable jobs.
ReplyDeleteWhy else all the secrecy if there is nothing to hide?
The Left DESPERATELY needs to challenge the ideology of enforced work for anyone whose doctors have signed them off as UNFIT for work.
ReplyDeleteAs in Eileen's experience, work should always be left to the discretion of the disabled individual.
It is not as if the UK has a shortage of able-bodied unemployed workers and needs to conscript the sick and dying.